Not dead… only sleeping
Sorry I haven’t updated… blabla… we’ve all read that post before. Anyway, I’m back on track now and in the spirit of Gilead, I declare the blog not to be dead, but merely waking up from a nice long nap (gotcha!) I’m also finally linking to this site on Facebook in a bid to shame myself into updating it here and there.
It would be convenient to claim that a certain natural disaster was the main cause of my absence, but the truth is that I could have been back online posting about Gilead by 9am on the day of the earthquake. It was certainly a distraction, but I can’t stretch it into a two-week, much less a two-month excuse.
I’ve mostly just been distracted with other activities, including:
- Studying Spanish: Technically this is priority number one, but I find that my level of enthusiasm varies wildly between –10 and obsessive, which should leave me with plenty of time for reading.
- Watching all three seasons of Mad Men (60’s bigotry! hideous clothing! I’m not quite sure why I find this show as captivating as I do) and depressing movies. Just let me know if you ever feel like your outlook on life is too positive. I might be able to suggest just the painful and pretentious cure you’re looking for.
- Family vacation: Requisite photo to go with this post — here I am on a volcano.
(poor quality – I’ll try to fix it later)
To get things back on topic, I’d like to conclude my blog commentary Gilead with a little story: One day I was sitting at work with the book on my desk when a colleague happened to notice it. He picked it up and examined it with interest, followed by disappointment. I asked him if he was familiar with the title or author and he told me that he wasn’t, but that the cover reminded him of a book he once read about an elf on a quest to avenge the death of his father.
If only?
I generally agree with your post below. I enjoyed the Gilead and could see myself rereading it someday. But the honest sort of unsophisticated-feeling truth is that there were times it bored me. Although I don’t think that it would have worked as a short story, I think I might have enjoyed it as much if not more in the form of a considerably shorter novel.
I don’t require much action to stay interested – not even fighting elves – but I hope that the characters in The True History of the Kelly Gang will find something more interesting to do than fall asleep in front of the TV.
Until next week (I promise!)
- Liz
